ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,498,341, issued on Dec. 16, was assigned to L'Oreal (Paris).

"Electronicless accessory recognition using dielectric properties" was invented by Casey Barbarino (San Anselmo, Calif.) and Rafael Feliciano (New Providence, N.J.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system including a device including a processor and an electrode configured to sense a dielectric profile, and at least one accessory having a dielectric profile, where the processor is configured to receive the sensed dielectric profile from the electrode, compare the sensed dielectric profile with a profile database, where the profile database includes a plurality of dielectric prof...